5.  The applicant was born in 1952 and lives in Volgograd.
6.  At the material time the applicant held the post of President of Vostok-Plus, an open joint-stock company, which was a shareholder in the limited liability company Volga Aviaexpress Airlines (ООО “Авиакомпания Волга‑Авиаэкспресс”).
7.  On 30 July 2003 the Volgograd Regional Prosecutor’s Office instituted criminal proceedings for fraud involving a Yak-42 aircraft.
8.  On 3 October 2003 an investigator filed charges against the applicant in absentia and ordered his placement on a domestic wanted list.
9.  On 6 October 2003 the applicant was placed on an international wanted list.
10.  On 8 October 2003 the Tsentralniy District Court of Volgograd (“Tsentralniy District Court”) ordered the applicant’s remand in custody in absentia on suspicion of fraud. The Tsentralniy District Court held as follows:
“... Following the institution of the criminal proceedings [the applicant] absconded from Volgograd.
On the basis of the operational information [provided by the law-enforcement authorities] about [the applicant’s] whereabouts in the United Kingdom or Canada, on 6 October 2003 he was placed on an international wanted list.
... The court considers it necessary to grant the investigator’s request [to authorise the applicant’s remand in custody] since [the applicant] has sought to evade the investigation, was placed on an international wanted list and may obstruct the establishment of the truth in the case. The court also takes into account the gravity of the charges [against the applicant].”
11.  On the same date the applicant was arrested in Volgograd, was served with a list of the charges and detained on the basis of the above detention order.
12.  The exact time and place of the applicant’s arrest are disputed between the parties. According to a report drawn up by a police officer, the applicant was arrested in the central district of Volgograd on 8 October 2003 at 6 p.m. and was subsequently brought to the Volgograd Regional Prosecutor’s Office. According to the applicant, until 7 October 2003 he did not know anything about the criminal proceedings against him. As soon as he learned about them, he went to the investigation department of the Volgograd Regional Prosecutor’s Office, where he was arrested on 8 October 2003 at about noon. During the subsequent trial several witnesses confirmed the applicant’s version of events.
13.  On 8 December 2003 the Tsentralniy District Court extended the applicant’s pre-trial detention until 30 March 2004, giving the following reasons:
“... The court considers the [investigator’s detention] application well-founded and grants the request, as [the applicant] has been placed on an international wanted list and, therefore, may abscond from the investigation and the court. The court also takes into account the gravity of the charges.”
14.  On 20 February 2004 the applicant was additionally charged with forgery, deliberate bankruptcy, tax evasion and a new count of fraud.
15.  On 15 March 2004 the Tsentralniy District Court extended the applicant’s pre-trial detention until 30 May 2004. The court relied on the gravity of the charges against the applicant and the fact that he had been placed on an international wanted list prior to his arrest, which gave the court sufficient grounds to believe that, if at large, the applicant might obstruct the proceedings. The court held that the application of a non‑custodial preventive measure was not possible. The court rejected the applicant’s argument that the procedure for placing a suspect on the international wanted list had not been complied with in his case. In the court’s opinion, as long as the relevant decisions had not been declared unlawful, the applicant’s placement on the wanted list was valid.
16.  On 31 May 2004 the applicant’s case file was remitted to the Dzerzhinskiy District Court of Volgograd (“Dzerzhinskiy District Court”) for examination on the merits.
17.  On 30 May 2004 the applicant’s detention ordered by the decision of 15 March 2004 expired. No other decision was made regarding his detention until 14 June 2004 (see paragraph 21 below). However, the applicant remained in detention.
18.  On an unspecified date in 2005 the applicant sought compensation for unlawful detention between 30 May and 14 June 2004.
19.  On 27 March 2006 the Tsentralniy District Court acknowledged that the applicant had been detained in the above period without a court order and awarded him 5,000 Russian roubles (about 150 euros at the material time).
20.  On 26 April 2006 the Regional Court upheld the judgment on appeal.
21.  On 14 June 2004 the Dzerzhinskiy District Court fixed a date for a preliminary hearing of the case and held that the custodial preventive measure applied to the applicant and three other co-defendants “should remain unchanged”.
22.  On 26 October 2004 the Dzerzhinskiy District Court scheduled the opening day of the trial and ordered that the custodial preventive measure in respect of the applicant and his three co-defendants “should remain unchanged”. The applicant applied for release, but the application was dismissed with the following reasoning:
“[The applicant and his three co-defendants] are charged with serious crimes punishable with long-term imprisonment. The [custodial] preventive measure was applied [in respect of them] during the preliminary investigation after an assessment of the defendants’ personalities, their health and the gravity of the crimes [they are accused of]. The arguments of the defendants and their representatives about the initial unlawful application of the custodial measure ... cannot be taken into consideration, as this [issue] is not the subject-matter of the present hearing.”
23.  The applicant appealed against the above decision, in so far as it concerned the custodial measure, arguing that it had not been necessary at that stage of the proceedings. The applicant’s co-defendants also appealed. The first appeal hearing by the Regional Court was scheduled for 21 December 2004 but was adjourned following a motion made by the defence on the same date, because two of the co-defendants’ counsel had not been duly summonsed to the hearing.
24.  On 25 January 2005 the Regional Court upheld the decision of 26 October 2004 on appeal in a summary fashion. It noted as follows:
“The arguments of the co-defendants ... concerning the initial unlawful application of the custodial measure ... cannot be examined by the appeal court ... [at the present hearing]. The decisions taken by the court in this respect have already entered into legal force ... and can only be challenged in supervisory review proceedings.”
25.  Following a complaint lodged by one of the applicant’s co‑defendants, on 14 April 2005 the Presidium of the Regional Court quashed the appeal decision of 25 January 2005 by way of supervisory review, doing so on the basis that the lower court had failed to address the arguments advanced on behalf of the co-defendants by their representatives.
26.  On 19 July 2005 the Regional Court again upheld the decision of 26 October 2004 on appeal.
27.  In the meantime, on 30 November 2004 the Dzerzhinskiy District Court extended the applicant’s and his three co-defendants’ detention for three months until 28 February 2005. It held as follows:
“The circumstances which prompted the application of the custodial measure have not changed. The defendants’ reference to the fact that they cannot exert pressure on witnesses or victims, as the preliminary investigation is over, and that they will not abscond as they have no previous criminal records and are not a danger to society, cannot be accepted by the court, because at the present time the trial has not yet started, and the court has not begun the examination of the evidence in the case, including the examination of witnesses and victims...
In such circumstances the court does not find grounds for altering the custodial measure to a more lenient one...”
28.  On 25 February 2005 the Dzerzhinskiy District Court extended the applicant’s and his three co-defendants’ detention for three months until 28 May 2005, even though the prosecution considered it no longer necessary and proposed to release them on an undertaking not to leave town:
“The defendants are charged with serious crimes punishable by long-term imprisonment. The custodial measure was applied [in respect of them] after consideration of their personalities, health, family situation, existence of dependents, and the gravity of the crimes [with which they have been charged]. No medical certificates indicating that the defendants cannot be detained in the remand prison for health reasons have been produced to the court.
The circumstances which prompted the application of the custodial measure have not changed so far. The defendants’ statements that they cannot exert pressure on witnesses and victims, as the majority of them have already been questioned by the court, and that they will not abscond as they have no previous criminal records and are not a danger to society, cannot be accepted by the court, because at the present time the trial has not been completed and the court has not examined the evidence in full. The defendants’ maintaining their innocence ... cannot justify changing the custodial measure to a more lenient one, as the court is yet to assess the cumulative evidence and to reach a conclusion as to the defendants’ guilt or innocence...”
29.  On 27 May 2005, having reiterated its previous reasoning, the Dzerzhinskiy District Court extended the applicant’s and his three co‑defendants’ detention for another three months until 28 June 2005. The applicant appealed.
30.  On 4 October 2005 the Regional Court upheld the decision of 27 May 2005 on appeal.
31.  On 7 June 2005 the Dzerzhinskiy District Court convicted the applicant of fraud, deliberate bankruptcy and tax evasion and sentenced him to four years’ imprisonment. The pronouncement of the judgment took four hours, from 8.30 p.m. to 00.30 a.m. the following day. The applicant’s and his co-defendants’ request to be allowed to sit down during the pronouncement of the judgment was turned down.
32.  On 4 October 2005 the Regional Court amended the judgment on appeal. The court quashed the applicant’s conviction for deliberate bankruptcy and held that his sentence should be suspended for two years, and that he be placed on probation.
33.  On 5 October 2005 the applicant was released.
34.  During the criminal proceedings the applicant was detained in remand prison IZ-34/1 of Volgograd. According to the applicant, on the days of the hearings he was woken up at 6 a.m., taken from his cell to the “waiting unit” or “assembly cell”, together with other detainees who had a hearing on that day, and later taken to the convoy area of the court-house. He had to wait in that area for many hours, sometimes until late in the afternoon, before the trial hearings started. Late in the evening the convoy would take him back to the remand prison. If there was a hearing on the following day, he had to endure the same early wake-up, long transfer and late arrival. He received no food on the days of the hearings, either at the remand prison or at the court-house.
35.  According to the Government, the applicant was taken to the court‑house on the following dates:
 
Year:
Dates:
Scheduled time of hearings:
2004
21, 22, 25 and 28 June
10 a.m.
 
5 July
10 a.m.
 
14, 20 24, 27 and
28 September
10 a.m., 10 a.m., 11 a.m., 11 a.m. and 11 a.m. respectively
 
4, 19, 25, 26 October 2.30 p.m., 12 p.m., 11.30 a.m. and 12 p.m. respectively
 
9, 22 and 30 November
10 a.m., 11 a.m. and 11 a.m. respectively
 
20 December 10.30 a.m.
2005
31 January
10 a.m.
 
7, 8, 14 and 25 February
11 a.m., 3 p.m., 3 p.m. and 2 p.m. respectively
 
18, 28 and 29 March
11 a.m., 3 p.m. and 1 p.m. respectively
 
8, 11, 12, 13, 15, 18, 20, 21,
22 April 12.20 p.m., 2 p.m., 12 p.m., 11 a.m., 11 a.m., 11 a.m., 10.30 a.m., 11 a.m. and 11 a.m. respectively
 
11, 12, 13, 17, 20, 27 May
12 p.m., 10.30 a.m., 12 p.m., 11.30 a.m., 12 p.m. and 11 a.m. respectively
 
3, 6 and 7 June
36.  The Government submitted that on the days of the applicant’s transfers to the court-house he had been woken up at 6 a.m. as usual. As a rule, he had been returned to the remand prison before 10 p.m. On the rare occasions when the applicant had been returned to the remand prison after 10 p.m., he had been allowed to sleep at any time during the next day. The Government were unable to submit information as to the exact time of the applicant’s arrivals at the remand prison from the court-house because the relevant documentation had been destroyed in 2006 and 2009 due to the expiry of the period for keeping those documents, but they affirmed that the court’s working hours were from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
37.  According to the Government, on the dates of the applicant’s transfers to the District Court he received a standard breakfast before leaving the remand prison and dry rations (bread or dry biscuits, tinned first and second courses, sugar, tea, a plastic spoon and a plastic cup), in compliance with the applicable regulations. In the “waiting unit” of the remand prison and the convoy area of the court the applicant was provided with hot water (necessary to prepare packed meals) upon request. In case of his return to the remand prison before 9 p.m., the applicant received lunch and/or dinner depending on the time of his return. In support of their submissions the Government provided a certificate issued by the governor of IZ-34/1 on 7 May 2010 accompanied by orders (рапорты) for dry rations in respect of a certain number of detainees to be transported to the court-house and invoices (накладные) concerning the provision thereof. The orders were drawn up by an officer on duty. The invoices were signed by the governor and the chief accountant of the remand prison, as well as by the officers who had given and received the dry rations. The documents covered most of the relevant dates. The Government also submitted the remand prison canteen’s menu for the relevant period.